had the breathless odor of a cellar. And suddenly Letitia heard again those strange sounds she had heard before coming out, and she knew that they were savage whoops of Indians, just as she had read about them in her history-book, and she saw also dark forms skulking about behind the trees, as she had read.

Then Letitia, wild with fright, turned to run back into the house through the little green door, but there was no little green door, and, more than that, there was no house. Nothing was to be seen but the forest and a bridle-path leading through it.

Letitia gasped. She could not believe her eyes. She ran out into the path and down it a little way, but there was no house. The dreadful yells sounded nearer. She looked wildly at the undergrowth beside the path, wondering if she could hide under that, when suddenly she heard a gun-shot and the tramp of a horse's feet. She sprang aside just as a great horse, with a woman and two little girls on his back, came plunging down the bridle-path and passed her. Then there was another gun-shot, and a man, with a wide cape flying back like black wings, came rushing down the path. Letitia gave a little cry, and he heard her.

“Who are you?” he cried breathlessly. Then, without waiting for an answer, he caught her up and bore her along with him. “Don't speak,” he panted in her ear. “The Indians are upon us, but we're almost home!”

Then all at once a log-house appeared beside the path, and someone was holding the door ajar, and a white face was peering out. The door was flung open wide as they came up, the man rushed in, set Letitia down, shut the door with a crash, and shot some heavy bolts at top and bottom.

Letitia was so dazed that she scarcely knew what happened for the next few minutes. She saw there a pale-faced woman and three girls, one about her own age, two a little younger. She saw, to her great amazement, the horse tied in the corner. She saw that the door was of mighty thickness, and, moreover, hasped with iron and studded with great iron nails, so that some rattling blows that were rained upon it presently had no effect. She saw three guns set in loopholes in the walls, and the man, the woman, and the girl of her own age firing them, with great reports which made the house quake, while the younger girls raced from one to the other with powder and bullets. Still, she was not sure she saw right, it was all so strange. She stood back in a corner, out of the way, and waited, trembling, and at last the fierce yells outside died away, and the firing stopped.

“They have fled,” said the woman with a thankful sigh.

“Yes,” said the man, “we are delivered once more out of the hands of the enemy.”

“We must not unbar the door or the shutters yet,” said the woman anxiously. “I will get the supper by candle-light.”

Then Letitia realized what she had not done before, that all the daylight was shut out of the house; that they had for light only one tallow candle and a low hearth fire. It was very cold. Letitia began to shiver with cold as well as fear.

Suddenly the woman turned to her with motherly kindness and curiosity. “Who is this little damsel whom you rescued, husband?” said she.

“She must speak for herself,” replied her husband, smiling. “I thought at first she was neighbor Adams's Phœbe, but I see she is not.”

“What is your name, little girl?” asked the woman, while the three little girls looked wonderingly at the new-comer.

“Letitia Hopkins,” replied Letitia in a small, scared voice.

“Letitia Hopkins, did you say?” asked the woman doubtfully.

“Yes, ma'am.”

They all stared at her, then at one another.

“It is very strange,” said the woman finally, with a puzzled, half-alarmed look. “Letitia Hopkins is my name.”

“And it is mine, too,” said the eldest girl.

Letitia gave a great jump. There was something very strange about this. Letitia Hopkins was a family name. Her grandmother, her father's mother, had been Letitia Hopkins, and she had always heard that the name could be traced back in the same order for generations, as the Hopkinses had intermarried. She looked up, trembling, at the man who had saved her from the Indians.

“Will you please tell me your name, sir?” she said.

“John Hopkins,” replied the man, smiling kindly at her.

“Captain John Hopkins,” corrected his wife.

Letitia gasped. That settled it. Captain John Hopkins was her great-great-great-grandfather. Great-aunt Peggy had often told her about him. He had been a notable man in his day, among the first settlers, and many a story concerning him had come down to his descendants. A queer miniature of him, in a little gilt frame, hung in the best parlor, and Letitia had often looked at it. She had thought from the first that there was something familiar about the man's face, and now she recognized the likeness to the miniature.

It seemed awful, and impossible, but the little green door led into the past, and Letitia Hopkins was visiting her great-great-great-grandfather and grandmother, great-great-grandmother, and her great-great-aunts.

Letitia looked up in the faces, all staring wonderingly at her, and all of them had that familiar look, though she had no miniature of the others. Suddenly she knew that it was a likeness to her own face which she recognized, and it was as if she saw herself in a looking-glass. She felt as if her head was turning round and round, and presently her feet began to follow the motion of her head, then strong arms caught her, or she would have fallen.

When Letitia came to herself again, she was in a great feather bed, in the unfinished loft of the log-house. The wind blew in her face, a great star shone in her eyes. She thought at first she was out of doors. Then she heard a kind but commanding voice repeating: “Open your mouth,” and stared up wildly into her great-great-great-grandmother's face, then around the strange little garret, lighted with a wisp of rag in a pewter dish of tallow, and the stars shining through the crack in the logs. Not a bit of furniture was there in the room, besides the bed and an oak chest. Some queer-looking garments hung about on pegs and swung in the draughts of the wind. It must have been snowing outside, for little piles of snow were scattered here and there about the room.

“Where—am—I?” Letitia asked feebly, but no sooner had she opened her mouth than her great-great-great-grandmother, Goodwife Hopkins, who had been watching her chance, popped in the pewter spoon full of some horribly black and bitter medicine.

Letitia nearly choked.

“Swallow it,” said Goodwife Hopkins. “You swooned away, and it is good physic. It will soon make you well.”

Goodwife Hopkins had a kind and motherly way, but a way from which there was no appeal. Letitia swallowed the bitter dose.

“Now go to sleep,” ordered Goodwife Hopkins.

Letitia went to sleep. There might have been something quieting to the nerves in the good physic. She was awakened a little later by her great-great-grandmother and her two great-great-aunts coming to bed. They were to sleep with her. There were only two beds in Captain John Hopkins's house.

Letitia had never slept four in a bed before. There was not much room. She had to turn herself about crosswise, and then her toes stuck into the icy air, unless she kept them well pulled up. But soon she fell asleep again.

About midnight she was awakened by wild cries in the woods outside, and lay a minute, numb with fright, before she remembered where she was. Then she nudged her great-great-grandmother, Letitia, who lay next her.

“What's that?” she whispered fearfully.

“Oh, it's nothing but a catamount. Go to sleep again,” said her great-great-grandmother sleepily. Her great-great-aunt, Phyllis, the youngest of them all, laughed on the other side.

“She's afraid of a catamount,” said she.

Letitia could not